Data Mining, one of our favorite marketing tools

March 5, 2004.

Usually, my articles on databases appear in geek publications like DB2 Magazine, but let's see how we use this technology in our brokerage.

If you ask a hundred people what is most important in investment real estate, you'll get a lot of answers.  If you ask us, we'll tell you that the real estate business doesn't involve land and buildings so much as it does data.  Ownership data.  Sales data.  Financing data.  Rents. Expenses.  All sorts of data from multiple, disparate sources.

Everybody sees little pieces of the data.  Very few can put the pieces together and develop an actionable plan to act on that data. 

For example,  one of our agents or clients may have a theory that says that owners who own multiple small buildings, have owned some of them for more than 5 years, and who saw a greater than 20% rise in taxes last year might have good reasons to sell.  Or that someone who has sold a property every year for the last five years and has not sold anything this year might be in the market.

We use proprietary database systems that reach out ("federate", in geek-speak) to extract and integrate data from many sources.  Based on this federated data, we then apply sophisticated data mining techniques to pull the best five or ten prospects out of the tens of  thousands in the database.

Don't be like Pavlov's dog, responding only to what's placed in front of you.  To buy right, you've got to be proactive and pursue what YOU want, not what just happens to be available for purchase at the time.

Let us show you how this data mining approach can help you zero in on makeable deals.

Tax-Advantaged Real Estate Transactions

Often a seller will generate substantial tax liabilities when he sells a property, especially those that have significantly appreciated in value since it was purchased.  1031 Tax-deferred exchanges are a good vehicle in many cases, but they require you to purchase other real estate to trade into.

What happens if you're a seller and don't want to buy another property?  What if you just want to retire to a sailboat in the Caribbean and drink Pina Coladas?  In conjunction with some of our financial planning partners, we can show buyers some new state-of-the art tax vehicles that can help them defer or avoid taxes.  We can structure transactions that will address many of the vexing problems facing sellers today.

We can show sellers how to defer taxes and avoid estate taxes without the risks and hassles of carrying a note.  Without the nagging worry of having to foreclose if subsequent buyers default.  The seller sells, does some whiz-bang financial magic, and gets significant current-year deductions, deductible carry-overs for several years to come, minimal taxes, AND a guaranteed income for the rest of his life, whether he lives one more year or 50 more.

Why does all this matter if we're a buyers' broker?  Simple.  If we can show sellers how to work this magic, it gives them a very strong motivation to sell.  After all, what would you prefer to do, keep working and running properties until you die or get disgusted with it, or retire to a sailboat with a guaranteed income for life?  Many of the older properties in the DF/W area are still owned by long-time owners.  If we can approach those owners with solutions to their tax problems, they're much more likely to do a deal.  Buyers get to see fresh, new, un-shopped deals, not those tired old open listings that every broker in Dallas has in his hip pocket, hoping that somewhere he'll find someone who has never talked to a real estate broker before.